Lakers sign huge cable deal with Time Warner

Time Warner Cable has signed a new 20-year deal with the Los Angeles Lakers that will lead to the creation of two new regional sports networks in the Los Angeles market next season.

The SportsBusiness Daily reports that the cable company will own two new regional sports networks: one in English and one in Spanish. This channel will have the rights to all of the Lakers’ preseason, regular season and postseason games beginning with the 2012-2013 season. The only games that Lakers games that will be available over free television will be network games.

To put it in terms of the Spurs’ television scale, the Lakers are selling to Time Warner all of the games that local viewers currently watch on Fox Sports Southwest, KENS and My35.

Time Warner Cable has long-standing relationships with the Spurs and other sports entities in South Texas.

The question obviously becomes could Time Warner make a move similar to its Lakers deal in this area with the Spurs when its current deal with Fox Sports Southwest expires?

It’s highly unlikely, according to Time Warner officials.

Melinda Witmer, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president and chief programming officer, told SportsBusiness Daily that the deal with the Lakers is unique and “would not necessarily be duplicated in other markets where TWC is the dominant cable operator.”

Roughly 620,000 of the 5.67-million television homes in the Los Angeles area don’t have pay television.

The new channels are Time Warner’s first foray into the regional sports network game.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Time Warner’s biggest challenge will be getting other distributors to carry the Lakers. Regional sports networks are among the most expensive programming for distributors, costing more than $2.50 per month per subscriber, according to industry estimates. Given the cost of landing the Lakers, Time Warner Cable will probably be looking for more than $3.50 per month.

But a couple of factors are certain.

The Lakers, one of the richest teams in the NBA, just got much, much wealthier.